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We are just barely in the beginning stages of trying to adopt a young girl from social services. my question is about using the references. Our paperwork says that we need 3 references that are not family, and 2 references that are family. We have plenty of supportive relatives (yay!) but unfortunately, most of our closest friends have issues that I'm not sure would make them good references. maybe you guys can help me out on this a little bit.
Friend 1 - Christina. I have been friends with Christina for the last 12 years. She is a wonderful and supportive friend and knows my every good and bad trait and I believe would be a wonderful reference. The only issue is that her husband is on the sex offender list in our area. it was for a relationship he had with a 17 year old when he was in his late twenties, nevertheless it remains on his record and he remains on the list. If I put Christina down as a reference are they going to look into her personal life and find out that her husband is on the sex offender list? Is that going to taint social services view of me?

Friend 2 - Amy. I have known any for almost 15 years and she is also been 1 of my closest friends for a very long time. About 7 years ago she and her husband adopted a little girl who had RAD. They did not know this when they are adopted her and it grew steadily worse very quickly. She went to school 1 day and lied and said that her mother abused her, but they were actually self inflicted wounds. My friend never was able to prove her innocence since it was completely heresay. Her and her husband were able to keep their own four biological children, but they had to terminate parental rights and give the little girl back into the foster care system. The charges were dropped to misdemeanor, which supposedly was only going to be on her record for 1 year. Like I said, she is one of my oldest and dearest friends and knows everything about me. But would I be putting this process at risk by using her as a reference?

My next question is whether or not my husband and I can use the exact same references. We were both thinking about using his sister as a relative reference.

And lastly, as I talked to my mom and my sister and a friend about using them as references, they all have the question about what will be asked of them. They aren't worried about going to any lengths for me, interviews, filling out paperwork or whatever it takes. They are just wondering what kind of questions will be asked of them.

Thanks in advance for advice anyone may give! I am excited and nervous at the same time and I just want this whole process to get going!

I don't think they "investigate" the references, so you're probably okay with either one, but with friend 2 you might need to be careful if she lives locally and folks at social services may recognize her name. Of course, I live in a small town, so it's probably much less of an issue if you're in an urban area. The purpose of the references is for the agency to get more information about YOU, not to get a lot of information about the references themselves. Other than telling how they know you and how long they've known you, I don't think they'll have to provide any personal information about themselves, and I know social services won't be doing a background check on them.

ETA: My agency requests written references, so I specifically chose friends who I knew were good writers.